Major Beverage Companies Lack Fizz In Recycling

Major Beverage Companies Lack Fizz in Recycling

American consumers buy half a billion drinks in bottles and cans every day but only one-third are recycled; most end up land filled, incinerated or littered.

A new study released by As You Sow concludes that most major U.S. beverage companies are failing to take substantive action to use recycled content and increase container recovery efforts.
"Waste and Opportunity: U.S. Beverage Container Recycling Scorecard and Report", a report card on the beverage industry's recycling efforts by As You Sow and the Container Recycling Institute, gives PepsiCo and Coca-Cola Co. the highest grades on recycling efforts; both earn a C. All other companies score D- or F with Cadbury Schweppes (Dr. Pepper, Snapple), Cott (RC); and National Beverage (Shasta, Power Blast) performing worst.

"More beverage containers are being discarded than ever before, but unfortunately a lower percentage of those containers are being recycled than in years past. This report helps highlight both the ecological and economic need for beverage companies to do more to recover and recycle beverage containers, and to support public policies which have been proven to help increase recycling rates." -Darby Hoover, Senior Resource Specialist Natural Resources Defense Council

Electronics Recycling
Beverage Container Recycling
Coca Cola Co.
PepsiCo
Beverage Survey
Recycled Paper Content
Previous Initiatives
Resources

Click for press release, executive summary or full text of the study.

Original survey available here: First Annual Beverage Container Environmental Survey